Had a bunch of family over for thanksgiving. We watched Brave and Amazing Spiderman. Started handing out glasses left and right, clip-ons, kids glasses, ladies pairs, adult glasses. As soon as they had their glasses on while watching the previews, then came the "Ohhhs" and "AAAAHHHs". It was quite interesting to hear everyone's expressions on 3D. I think for many this was their first experience with it. I'm so used to it now I don't get that anymore and I really miss it. The depth becomes second nature and you expect it.

Of course this was on a passive LG 65". There would be no way we could have done active. The ones wearing prescription glasses would have gawked at the idea of having to put the larger active pair over their glasses. Most likely we would have ended up watching the 2D version. Not to mention I would not have had enough glasses to go around. When I bought the LG cinema tube cases they were about 35.00 for 6 pair and I bought 3 tubes. If I had bought the active shutter for the Sharp TV I was looking at it would have costed me an additional 1800.00 for the glasses vs. 90.00 for the LG.

So the 3D showing was a big hit and all thanks to the passive LG display which works great for groups and provided a very enjoyable experience for everyone. If it had been active I would not have enjoyed the movie as I would have been looking over my shoulder to make sure the kids were not taking them off and throwing them across the room, as they have already done with the passive. Also if active to check and make sure everyone was getting 3D with freshly charged batteries. Actually I didn't even look around but a couple of times and each time I just smiled and thought, "Oh, yeah, it's working. No question."

So when we strip down your post it just comes down to:
"I like passive 3D better than active 3D and I totally have to justify my preference to the whole internet like it's some kind of religion that people should be polarized about."

Even if that's true, just give it time.. someone will come in here laughing about how silly his half-resolution passive TV is, how batteries aren't an issue with rechargeable glasses, and how active is so much better. Or to just point out how silly it is to openly support passive, on a board where the majority openly support active without taking any flak about it.

Tom, what TV are you using? I'm shopping around for a new living room set, and I want to go big (wallet permitting).

Tom, what TV are you using? I'm shopping around for a new living room set, and I want to go big (wallet permitting).

65lw6500

Quote:

Originally Posted by |Tch0rT|

So when we strip down your post it just comes down to:
"I like passive 3D better than active 3D and I totally have to justify my preference to the whole internet like it's some kind of religion that people should be polarized about."

You sound defensive and insecure. Only saying that our enjoyable 3D viewing would not have happened any other way with our large group and If my TV were active it would have been shown in 2D and watched again at another time in 3D by myself.

Well, that's a coincidence. Just yesterday some old friends stopped for a visit. They'd never seen a 3D TV before. So we all watched Hugo on my LG 65LW6500 in my modest home theater.

They were blown away. My friend's wife commented that when watching RealD 3D in theater, the 3D effect comes and goes for her. She didn't experience that at all watching the LG. And they both commented how it looked better and my surround system sounded better than theater.

I replied that I couldn't explain the first point, but the other two didn't surprise me. I've experienced plenty of poorly calibrated, out-of-focus movies and crummy audio in theaters. It's either incompetence or the theater employees don't care, figuring most people don't know enough to notice. In which they're probably right.

Small wonder my wife and I rarely go out for movies any more. We'll be there though for the Hobbit in December.

You sound defensive and insecure. Only saying that our enjoyable 3D viewing would not have happened any other way with our large group and If my TV were active it would have been shown in 2D and watched again at another time in 3D by myself.

No just picking on a few "active 3D is the devil" and "active 3D would've ruined the experience" attitude. Different strokes for different folks. Just always seems like it has to be Passive 3D vs Active 3D, Apple or PC, Apple or Android, nVidia vs ATI/AMD, Intel vs AMD, Ford vs Chevy, or Coke vs Pepsi. My family watched Brave in 3D on our active set. No one complained. I didn't have as many people as you seemed to have though. It's cool you got to show some people 3D for the first time. I had some friends over like that a few weeks ago and had them going "Ohhhhh" and "Ahhhh" over the Potato Cod scene on the IMAX Under the Sea 3D.

Yeah, this was more a post for 3D in general, not active vs. passive. There's already other threads for that. I think the majority of movie collectors are totally oblivious to 3D so any chance to give them exposure on either format is a plus. In the end I'd rather see 3D succeed regardless of which format wins. If that's active, so be it. But I probably won't be buying a new display to replace mine for at least 5-7 years, that's about the time it takes for me to upgrade. Preferably, I'd like to see passive win with true 1080p per eye as it would be the most convenient for viewing especially when there is the huge obstacle of having to wear glasses, plus settling the 3D HD debate.

That was my biggest hangup with going 3D, then I got past it and bought the 3D TV, and now it has come up again. Not that I mind wearing glasses, it's just that you have to interrupt your normal routine. For casual viewing I just don't watch much 3D, you have to go out of your way to do it. If it's DIrecTV, I have to get up, get the glasses, make sure they're clean and wipe them off. It doesn't sound like much but when you're laying around and you know it takes something extra you end up not doing it. Blu ray is even a little more work. I used to have to go upstairs, unplug the PS3, hook it up on the LG downstairs, adjust the settings for that display on the PS3, go grab the disc, wait for it to load, get the glasses. I finally got a stand alone player so that time is significantly reduced. Still, it's not as simple as 2D.

I'm more sided with passive because I like the cost and convenience but the way I see it, passive and active isn't really the debate anymore. It's 2D and whether or not 3D can stay in the market and not become a short-lived fad like it was in the 50's. I think we need 1 format going forward. Just like HD DVD vs Blu ray, customers get confused easily and they can't have more than one choice or they'll explode. Cost is the other factor, they need to get the prices down a bit on 3D content.

I don't see enough posts here about creating 3D exposure to 2D viewers which is what the 3D market needs. Anytime you can get a bunch of people together and have them remark about how neat it is, is a clap on the back for investing in the 3D display, player and content. I have to admit, I was a little shocked at the responses because I'd forgot really how neat it was the first time I'd seen 3D. I was thinking anaglyph but got a total different experience.

I have a Panasonic 50" Active and friggin love it. I have 2 glasses that I got with the Avatar set and an extra pair that I got with my Sony Playstation 3D Display. I've had plenty of people over and all 3 of them have loved it. Hell, if I had dropped $50 for another pair, 4 of them would have loved it. My point is, as much as I love my Actives, the next one I buy will by passive. Looks just as good and you can have plenty of glasses at no cost. And...you can keep some collectors glasses too...like Avengers, Dredd and the Katy Perry glasses I still have. Wait....should I have admitted that I went to see that? By myself? I swear it was just for the 3D. Btw, Life of Pi is a MUST SEE for any self respecting 3D fan.

I know I've read the glasses are cheaper now, I haven't checked on the Sharp but when I bought my LG earlier this year the Sharp's were 100/pair. I bought 18 pairs (3 of the 6 pack tubes from Amazon) for 30 or 35 for each tube, so around 100 for 18 pairs. If I had bought the Sharp TV, I would have had to spend 1800.00 to get the same amount. Cost was definitely a factor in choosing my TV. The LG was 2600 for the 65" and 3500 for the 70". Plus the extra 1800 for the glasses. I really wanted the bigger screen of the Sharp but couldn't justify spending that much more for it.

If they could get the cost down on the glasses to where they're the same as passive I'd go with active. But it's hard to say what will happen in 5 or 6 years.

you can get 18 pairs of active glasses (RF) for $323.28. I'm not quite sure how you seat 18 people around a 65" screen, tough. My 165" screen movie room only seats 13. 3D projector arrives tomorrow. It was supposed to be here wednesday before thanksgiving, but amazon messed up the shipping.

That was my biggest hangup with going 3D, then I got past it and bought the 3D TV, and now it has come up again. Not that I mind wearing glasses, it's just that you have to interrupt your normal routine. For casual viewing I just don't watch much 3D, you have to go out of your way to do it. If it's DIrecTV, I have to get up, get the glasses, make sure they're clean and wipe them off. It doesn't sound like much but when you're laying around and you know it takes something extra you end up not doing it. Blu ray is even a little more work. I used to have to go upstairs, unplug the PS3, hook it up on the LG downstairs, adjust the settings for that display on the PS3, go grab the disc, wait for it to load, get the glasses. I finally got a stand alone player so that time is significantly reduced. Still, it's not as simple as 2D.

Yeah the interrupt of the easy viewing routine is one of the things that'll keep 3D from ever being truly adopted IMO. One of my friends I had over recently said it seems like a hassle to get setup and it is to an extent. My setup was mostly for 3D games using nVidia's 3D Vision so I have even more steps to get 3D up and running not to mention setup tricks and EDID overrides had to get for my DLP to be even recognized properly. 3D movies are a bit easier with the PS3 and TV just going into Automatic mode once a 3D BluRay is inserted, even then 3D viewing is really more of an event.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomtastic

I know I've read the glasses are cheaper now, I haven't checked on the Sharp but when I bought my LG earlier this year the Sharp's were 100/pair.

Ouch! I thought the $75 active glasses for my DLP were bad. I held out and was able to pick up some active glasses at around $30/pair which isn't too bad. I missed out on the Sony PS3 glasses when they hit $20 a pair recently.

There's just too many types of glasses; active, passive, IR, RF, and the compatibility issues even amongst the same type of glasses like active IR helps keep 3D pushed back. When I did my research on 3D it was confusing for me and I'm a tech geek. I can't image what the average Joe goes through when they go out looking for a 3DTV other then probably getting bent over by a big box store with expensive glasses and 3D HDMI cables.

Yeah the interrupt of the easy viewing routine is one of the things that'll keep 3D from ever being truly adopted IMO. One of my friends I had over recently said it seems like a hassle to get setup and it is to an extent. My setup was mostly for 3D games using nVidia's 3D Vision so I have even more steps to get 3D up and running not to mention setup tricks and EDID overrides had to get for my DLP to be even recognized properly. 3D movies are a bit easier with the PS3 and TV just going into Automatic mode once a 3D BluRay is inserted, even then 3D viewing is really more of an event.
Ouch! I thought the $75 active glasses for my DLP were bad. I held out and was able to pick up some active glasses at around $30/pair which isn't too bad. I missed out on the Sony PS3 glasses when they hit $20 a pair recently.
There's just too many types of glasses; active, passive, IR, RF, and the compatibility issues even amongst the same type of glasses like active IR helps keep 3D pushed back. When I did my research on 3D it was confusing for me and I'm a tech geek. I can't image what the average Joe goes through when they go out looking for a 3DTV other then probably getting bent over by a big box store with expensive glasses and 3D HDMI cables.

If active glasses had been $30 bucks when I started researching 3D TVs, I might have given it more consideration.
I remember round about a hundred bucks too for them at the time.

3D will be adopted more widely when the Glassess Free HDTV's arrive in stores at affordable prices. Holographic HDTVs will still be very expensive.

There's a distinct difference between glasses-free 3D and holographic 3D. To me, glasses-free 3D implies what we have today, just without the glasses. So you could use the same content, like 3D Blu-ray, and you'd still be looking at shots framed within a 2D window, but with an extra depth/pop-out dimension. We do have lenticular displays, which aren't practical for what most people would consider a "TV," but I'd put those in that category. Are you aware of even a theory for how to do it beyond that? I'm thinking it could be a long time before we see a practical glasses-free 3D TV, much less an affordable one. A really long time.

That's very different than a full-on 360 degree holographic display, which would be the exotic sci-fi displays you see in movies. If there was a way to do it, I could see it being useful for video conferencing, 3D modeling, or even certain types of games. But I don't think that would be popular with film directors, as you wouldn't be able to direct the audience's attention to a particular actor emoting or whatnot. It also would mean practical or digital set extensions to wrap all the way around and a way to remove the camera and crew - a lot of extra work for every scene. If an audience member happened to be looking at the side (or back!) of a character's head during an important moment, that would be disappointing, for instance.

3D will be adopted more widely when the Glassess Free HDTV's arrive in stores at affordable prices. Holographic HDTVs will still be very expensive.

I'm one of those strange people that actually likes wearing 3D glasses. I'm sure part of it is that I've had to wear corrective glasses since I was five years old so the thought of wearing glasses to watch a movie is something I've done all my life anyway. But beyond that, I find that the 3D glasses - and the marginal sense of tunnel vision they can create - makes me pay that much more attention to the movie since any peripheral distractions are blocked out. For me, watching a movie is not necessarily a social interaction. I typically don't talk much or feel the need to get up and movie around; I like to focus on the content up on the screen and with the glasses on I actually feel even more connected to it.